Contents

Biology

Rattata is a small, quadruped rodent Pokémon. It has purple fur with a cream-colored face, paws, and underbelly. It has narrow, red eyes, rounded ears with cream-colored insides, and a single whisker on each cheek. Its long tail is tightly curled at the end. Its most notable feature is its large teeth. Like most rodents, its teeth grow continuously throughout its life and must be worn down by gnawing. A female Rattata will have shorter whiskers and lighter fur.

Rattata can live wherever it can find food, which it searches for most of the day. Thanks to its sharp fangs, it is able to eat nearly anything. When it is threatened, Rattata can deliver a powerful bite. Its large teeth are also useful when using its former signature moves, Hyper Fang and Super Fang. Its hardiness lets it live in many environments, although it mainly lives on plains and savannas. Because it reproduces so quickly, a pair of Rattata can quickly colonize an area.

Rattata are non-native to Alola and arrived in cargo ships. The Rattata population in Alola was booming until Yungoos was imported as a control measure. In order to avoid these new predators, Rattata altered its habits. It moved to more urban areas, became nocturnal, and formed large nests led by Raticate.[1] Alolan Rattata searches out fresh food by smell and ignore anything spoiled. It has even been known to sneak into people's homes to find food. It has dark gray fur and grayish-purple ear insides. There are two tufts of fur on each ear and near the tip of its tail. Its long, thin whiskers are replaced by shorter, thicker tufts of fur as well. The line where its cream underbelly meets its gray fur is ragged instead of smooth. This variant of Rattata is the shortestDark-type.

Rattata and its evolved form, Raticate. The Mouse Pokémon. A Dark and Normal type. When they band together, they steal food from people's homes. Long ago, they came here to the Alolan islands aboard cargo ships, and eventually grew into the Pokémon we see today. The numbers of Rattata and Raticate eventually grew so large that Yungoos and Gumshoos were brought in from a different region to chase them off.

In Off Course with Corsola, Bill fantasized about two Rattata, one from the Kanto region and the other from Johto, when he explains to Crystal that Pokémon from different regions can have different colors, patterns, and features.

Alolan Rattata can be seen as a counterpart of Yungoos as they can be caught at certain times of the day (Yungoos at day, Alolan Rattata at night). They also evolve into Gumshoos and Alolan Raticate, respectively, at level 20 at their respective times. Also, their evolved forms are the Totem Pokémon in their respective games (Gumshoos in Sun and Ultra Sun, Raticate in Moon and Ultra Moon).

Origin

Rattata is based on a rat. The shape and position of its ears might be derived from the dumbo rat.

Alolan Rattata may be based on how Hawaiian rats tend to be more vicious than most other areas of the world, which would explain its Dark typing. Their regular attacks on sugar cane fields forced the locals to import the small Asian mongoose, explaining the relationship between Yungoos and Rattata. However, the small Asian mongoose is diurnal while rats are nocturnal, thus the small Asian mongoose was ineffective at its intended role and became an invasive species. This is reflected in-game by the fact that Yungoos can only be found during the day, while Alolan Rattata can only be found at night.

Name origin

Rattata may be a combination of rat and attack, evident from its prototype name, Rattatak.[2] It may also incorporate the onomatopoeic word rat-a-tat.

Koratta is a combination of 子 ko (child) and Ratta (Raticate's Japanese name), leaning toward the meaning "child Ratta." It may also be a combination of 小 ko (small) and rat.